Re(dis)covering Goffman: Disability, ‘Deference’ and ‘Demeanor’ in a Community Café

• In Event: 41025 - Experiencing and Expressing Disability Identities

Abstract

Erving Goffman’s scholarship, and particularly his work on ‘stigma’, has been subject to intense critique in sociology in recent years (Tyler, 2018). One subfield which has a particularly complicated relationship with Goffman is disability studies. His account of stigma is viewed as being antithetical to the driving principles of disability studies, that is, to: depart from deficit configurations of disability; to define disability as embedded in rigid and oppressive social structures, and; to recognize more positive accounts of disability. In this paper, I discuss the enduring value of Goffman’s work for social theory and, in particular, for understanding the social worlds of disabled people.

Drawing upon ethnographic fieldwork at a community café run by learning-disabled adults and their non-disabled allies, I utilize Goffman’s (1956, 1967) much-neglected concepts of ‘deference’ and ‘demeanor’ to explore how learning-disabled adults are afforded respect, or not, in this space. I sketch out how mundane encounters – taking orders, making drinks, serving customers – are carefully accomplished in ways that accord deference to café team members. Deference rituals help to assert the humanity, contribution, and value of disabled people, and to build communities of care, solidarity, and belonging. Equally, I capture how customers, on occasion, do not act with deference, nor display ‘good’ demeanor. In such moments, their conduct – whereby team members are ignored, disregarded, or framed as charitable subjects – animates deficit scripts of disability. To conclude the paper, I call for disability studies, and sociology more broadly, to re-engage with Goffman’s theoretical project: to take seriously the interaction order as a substantive sociological domain in its own right.

Author

• Gareth Martin Thomas, Cardiff University